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Mirror Mirror on the Wall

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You have an image of yourself inside your head, your Self Image .

This image acts as the ultimate instruction manual for your life.  It provides the rules of operation by which you live.

Your thoughts, behaviors and actions are all consistent with your self image.

Now here’s the thing:  some of your self image is beneficial and supports you to have a great life and some of your self image is not beneficial and causes you to suffer.  And almost all of your self image got created by accident.  It was influenced by parents, teachers, friends, society, culture, religion, role models, and your experiences.

For example:  If your self image includes being a successful business person that would probably make your life better.  If your self image includes being an inept business person that would probably make you suffer.

The good news is that you can change parts of your self image and in so doing you can improve your life.

Here’s an easy way to change your self image:

First of all, you need to get a sense of your current self image.

#1  Pick an area of your life that you are looking to improve.  As an example, let’s use money (or fitness).

#2  Imagine that you enter a big room and in the room are four groups of people.

In one corner are people earning minimum wage and entry level type salaries.  (Overweight non-exercisers)

In the second corner are working people who earn $40-80K a year.  (A little chubby, occasional exercisers)

In the third corner are business owners and managers who make $100-250K a year.  (Fit, exercise daily)

And in the fourth corner are executives, top sales people and CEO’s who make over $250k a year.  (Marathon runners etc.)

#3  In which of these four groups would you feel most comfortable, most at home?  (Stick with reality here - not which group would you most like to be in but rather which one would be most natural, familiar and comfortable.)

That is your current self image.

#4  Imagine that you are a shorts and t-shirt type of person and that you dressed up in formal evening wear, a tuxedo or cocktail dress.  When you look in the mirror, it might take a moment to recognize yourself and then you would say, "oh yeah, that’s me."

#5  You want to use this idea, "Oh yeah, that’s me" to change your self image.

Create an image that is an upgrade of your current image.  Then keep reminding yourself, "Oh yeah, that’s me!"

It only takes a couple of seconds to do this:  "Oh yeah, that’s me - the successful business person!"  "Oh yeah, that’s me - the daily exerciser!"

When you keep reminding yourself of this, you begin to change that self image and when you do that, your life changes!

Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s that successful ________ I see?  Oh yeah, that’s me!

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How Do You Think About Yourself?

The way that you think about yourself has everything to do with the way your life is turning out.

Maxwell Maltz was a very famous plastic surgeon.  (He also wrote Psycho Cybernetics.)  He discovered something very interesting.  What he discovered is that he would do the same procedure on two different people and create very different results.

Let’s imagine that two people went to see Maltz because their noses had gotten crushed and deformed.  Because of this blemish, they had become self conscious and shy.  After the surgery one’s life was totally changed.  He became social, outgoing and confident.  For the other, nothing really changed.  In fact oftentimes this person couldn’t even tell that he looked different.  Friends and family could see the difference but he couldn’t see it in himself.

Maltz realized that there is a self image inside our heads - who we think we are.  This self image runs our lives.

If we change the outside but do not change the inside, the self image, nothing really changes.

I had a very insightful weekend regarding my own self image.

I think of myself as a laborer rather than a business owner.  This is a problem!  This is contradictory to what I want to create in my life.

I’ve been an entrepreneur pretty much my whole life but I have never thought of myself as such.

In high school and college I had a lawn mowing business.  I made way more money then my peers who had summer jobs.  But I never thought of myself as a business owner.  It never occurred to me to get even more customers and then hire some labor and make money off of their efforts.  Instead, my mindset was that if I want to make more money, I just need to work more.

Well, 20 years later I’m still doing that.  I still think of myself as a laborer.  Now that I am aware of this, I see it all over my life.

On my recent fishing trip to Alaska, I was a laborer.  If I saw something that needed to get done - I did it - get the boat ready, rig up fishing poles, haul salmon, vac-pac salmon and so on.  (I am a very good laborer).

If my self image was of a business owner, an entrepreneur, I would have seen that these things needed to be done and then would have made sure that they got done with me doing the doing as a last resort.

The good news is that:  You can change your self image!

Contrary to popular opinion, you can change your self image and changing it can be a quick, easy and painless process.

I have an appointment with myself this afternoon to do some work on changing my self image from laborer to business owner/entrepreneur.

Take a look at how you think about yourself.  If that thinking is not consistent with what you want to create in your life, then it’s time for a self image upgrade.

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Jekyll and Hyde

Have you ever had a Jekyll and Hyde experience?

If you are living human the answer to this is - Of Course!

A Jekyll and Hyde experience is when you have a plan or course of action that you know would be good for you and would support you and then you go and do something completely different, something that is not good for you and does not support you.

Dr. Jekyll makes a plan and then Mr. Hyde takes over and things go to heck.  This is when you usually say something like:  What the “bleep” just happened?  Or, you start asking why:  Why did I do that?  Why didn’t I do that?  And so on.

Jekyll says, ” I ought to exercise, I’ll go for a run.”  Then Hyde takes over and 3 beers later Jekyll is wondering why he didn’t go for the run and why he drank those beers.

Jekyll has a plan to call clients this afternoon and follow up with them.  Hyde takes over, the afternoon is wasted and no calls are made.  Jekyll wonders what the bleep happened and where did the afternoon go.

Jekyll is often frustrated because he has good intentions and knows that these things would be very valuable and beneficial - but they do not happen.

Jekyll is your conscious mind.  Hyde is your non-conscious mind.  Whenever these two are not in alignment, Jekyll ends up frustrated and Hyde ends up running the show.

You have tried to fight Hyde so you know from personal experience that this does not work.  Hyde is just too strong he overwhelms you and takes over.

So, what to do?

It’s not about Jekyll becoming stronger or having more willpower.  Hyde simply takes over and that is the end of Jekyll’s plans.

You need to explore what is going on beneath the surface.  You need to discover what is that button that is getting pushed that has Hyde surface and take over thus thwarting your good intentions.

Then you need to reprogram that button so that Hyde stays hidden, so that Hyde does not need to come to the surface to ruin the day.

One way to reprogram the button is to inquire into:  what is my fear, what is my resistance here that brings out Hyde?  Once you have identified this then you can recontextualize and reframe the situation which, will give you different access to it.

A client of mine had a really hard time asking for sales.  When it came time to ask for the sale, Hyde would appear and consequently she wouldn’t ask for the sale.  We did some recontextualizing and reframing.  She saw that her job was to inspire people and that asking for the sale was really asking if the prospect wanted to get inspired.  For her this was a very different question and it kept Hyde dormant.

If you are not sure what the button is, what triggers Hyde to show up feel free to contact me for a complimentary Business Mindset Analysis.

In the Business Mindset analysis we will spend 15 minutes and take a look at what is the invisible brick wall that you keep bumping into that keeps you from succeeding.  We will look at what is it that makes Hyde appear.